Current Poll
| Rural customers could benefit from PUA |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Brian McCauley | |||
| Wednesday, 08 July 2009 13:14 | |||
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The new water plant being built along the Marais des Cygnes River currently is set to provide only Paola and Louisburg with water once it goes online next month, but plans need to be made now regarding future customers, including rural Miami County residents. The two cities are the only current members of the Marais des Cygnes Public Utility Authority (PUA), which is funding and managing the water project. But the new transmission lines the PUA has installed to transport water from the plant to two new water towers cut right through Miami County Rural Water District No. 2 territory. Some of the PUA lines on 311th Street east of Victory Road basically go through the front yards of Dale and Joanna Shay and Donna and Allen Elsbury. With RWD No. 2’s infrastructure still too far out to service the Shays and Elsburys, they obviously would like to tap into the new PUA lines. Originally, PUA board members and RWD No. 2 officials both seemed receptive to working out an agreement in which the PUA could temporarily service the customers by selling water to RWD No. 2, but the plan has been hung up on details such as which entity would actually bill the customer and concerns over whether the PUA, a wholesale water district, should even be dealing with private property owners in the first place. It certainly doesn’t help the situation that Louisburg and RWD No. 2 currently are caught up in a territorial dispute of their own that recently was rekindled following a decision by the Kansas Supreme Court to overturn a local ruling. The issues between city officials and Miami County RWD No. 2 need to be set aside in this case for the betterment of local residents. RWD No. 2 officials have openly criticized the PUA’s water project, saying they could have provided the cities water for much less cost, but now that the project is nearing completion, RWD No. 2 needs to find a way to utilize the new pipelines to help residents in its territory. Likewise, PUA members need to realize that even a wholesale water district can make provisions for local customers who sit mere feet from new water lines. Regulations will need to be put in place, because the Shays and Elsburys won’t be the last rural customers to want to have water service from the PUA, but surely an agreement can be reached. Let’s hope hard feelings between city and rural water district officials won’t leave rural Miami County residents on the outside looking in when it comes to water service.
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